AMD has confirmed that the throttling issues on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference models are related to the thermal solution.
AMD Confirms Radeon RX 7900 XTX Thermal Solution Issues and Commits to Providing a Solution for Affected Users
over the past week, users started reporting a serious problem with Radeon RX 7900 XTX ‘MBA’ reference graphics cards which caused overheating and resulted in thermal throttling. This made the reference designs less efficient as they ran at lower clock speeds and while AMD’s initial response was that everything was “Normal” and declined an RMA to a customerthe company later softened its stance and has asked affected users to contact the support team.
Now, after a few days of investigation, AMD is still determining the root cause of the throttling and overheating issues, but has provided us with the following statement which more or less confirms that the issue could be thermal design related , which was also highlighted by hardware experts such as Der8auer and Igor’s Lab.
We are working to determine the root cause of the unexpected limitation experienced by some when using AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards manufactured by AMD. Based on our observations to date, we believe the issue is related to the thermal solution used in the AMD reference design and appears to be present in a limited number of cards sold.
We are committed to solving this problem to have an impact. Customers experiencing this unexpected limitation should contact AMD support (https://www.amd.com/fr/
support/contact-call). through AMD
AMD states that the issue is present in a limited number of Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards, but it appears that the actual number of graphics cards affected could be higher and in the 1000 range as mentioned by Igor’s Lab. Igor has spoken with a few system builders/distributors who state that the issues have been known for weeks and that it is not just one batch that is affected but several (4-6 to speak of). Here are some quotes from Igor Laboratory:
The problem has already been known for more than two weeks and is communicated between AMD and distributors (internally), the exact way the problem will be communicated to the end customer has not yet been definitively decided. … AMD’s statement was originally scheduled to be made on January 3, 2023 at 6 p.m. CET, but it was postponed..
As assumed, the cause is the evaporator chamber…several batches are involved. Currently 4-6 bundles and thousands of graphics cards are assumed. Only MBA cards are concerned. (quote from email)
We had to return over 300 graphics cards from Asus MBA, Sapphire MBA, PowerColor MBA, XFX MBA to retailers/warehouses/wholesalers…
Complete systems also had to be disassembled for this procedure. (quote from email)End customers should contact the vendor or AMD Support directly. Distributors and stores should send affected graphics cards to wholesalers and warehouses. (quote from email)
It was also reported that the problem occurs about 2-3 weeks after using AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards, so other cases may soon appear if this is true. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX MBA “Reference” graphics cards were among the first designs to hit the market and many users bought them because they were the only ones that sold at MSRP. But now those same graphics cards are plagued with thermal throttling and overheating issues that can lead to a major recall or RMA.
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